кра сный
by Pheather McKelle
Summary: Refusing to believe the past he was told, Bucky blunders around New England for the better part of a week until, freezing and exhausted, he stumbles across a friendly mechanic who isn't squeamish about poking around in metal arms. [T for minor gore, takes place after TWS]
1. Chapter 1

**Krasnyy**

**A Captain America Fanfiction**

**by Pheather McKelle**

**I own nothing except my OCs and the plot, I'm just a girl with a dream. :3**

_(okay so something went wrong on the last post, like it was all just HTML code, so this *should* be better because I took out all the russian words.)_

**Chapter 1**

That was the second time during the snowstorm that Zlata thought she heard someone howl.

Though she was used to the noises that wintery winds made, this one sounded different. Perhaps is was because Massachusetts winters were harsher than Russian ones? Zlata quickly discounted the possibility; she had lived here since she was sixteen. Snowstorm upon snowstorm had rattled these windows before, and she was well used to the sound. Besides, New England wasn't all that different from Russia when it came to snowstorms: sharp winds blew, pellets of icy snow pinged off the windows, and you usually took in more wood than the fireplace would use.

Zlata shivered when she heard the noise again, trying to push away the thought that someone was lost in a storm such as this. Maybe it was a half-frozen fisher cat or some stray pet from one of her neighbors.

The noise came again, and Zlata was sure it wasn't a fisher cat.

Curiosity got the best of her and she donned her light down coat, since the snow was relatively dry and powdery, and a cap and mittens, wading out into the thick drifts of swirling white.

For a few seconds, her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the backlighting from the windows of her house casting flickering shadows on the pale snow. The smudge that was the workshop was dark, and Zlata was about to curse her stupidity when she saw the flare of light in her shack.

Great, something's short-circuited, she grumbled, trudging through the snow towards the workshop. Approaching cautiously, she heard the thud of heavy boots and a goan. Zlata steeled herself and grabbed the frozen handle of the axe still stuck in its log before proceeding, took a deep breath, and opened the door. She froze.

Though only marginally warmer than the outside, the workshop was blissfully free from wind and stinging grains of sandy snow. Heaped on rough, scarred wooden tables were an engine block, an assortment of discarded tools, and several other projects, which made lumpy shapes in the night. Through the inky darkness, a lone candle burned in solitude, its light flickering off the shining metal of her contraptions, and of the pale, stubbly face of a gaut man.

"Wh-who are you?" Zlata stammered, both from fear and from the cold. She might as well have remained silent for all the attention the man paid her; not a hair stirred when she spoke. He stared into the bright gold depths of the candle, appearing lost in thought, but the pain in his features made it seem as though they were some pretty dark thoughts indeed. His shuddering breaths echoed in the shack, causing the candle to dance with each exhale.

"I'm armed." Zlata warned him, though only half-heartedly. He didn't stir. Creeping forward, axe brandished, and saw that, despite the storm, he wore hardly more than a trenchcoat with the collar turned up and a dirty baseball cap, his long, greasy, shaggy brown hair in disarray. He looked torn between breaking down and crying or filling rivers with the blood of his enemies. Zlata surely hoped she wasn't numbered among them.

"Are you okay?" she asked. This got a reaction out of him. The man shifted his gaze to he stared at the slightly frightened woman, shivering in the cold, her breath coming in little puffs. He shifted his coat and pulled out his arm, ignoring the woman slowly backing up and raising the axe.

"My arm." he mumbled. Zlata's eyes widened. What she took for a metallic compression sleeve was, in fact, a metal arm, made of interlocking plates that served in the place of skin and sinew. Several of the plates were bent at odd angles, a few frayed wires peeking through. With a shuddering breath, Zlata hesitantly put down her axe and grabbed her tool belt from its customary hook.

"Where did you get this?" she asked as she examined the wires. The man remained mute, but his expression hardened somewhat. "Does this hurt?" she asked, clamping two wires together. The man looked at her somewhat incredulously, as if no one had asked him the question before.

"... No." he said after a little bit. Zlata nodded. While this technology was obviously far out of her reach, it seemed a simple fix; attaching the wires and, with her good pliers, bending the plates down to cover them. It was a crude fix, but a fix nonetheless.

"Can you wiggle your fingers?" she asked. The man's fingers slowly clenched, and the man nodded. "What's your name?" she asked. The man shook his head, remaining mute. "Well I have to know what to call you." she smirked somewhat. She traced her fingers up the contours of muscle until she reached a chipped, fading red star. "Krasnyy." she whispered, tracing the contours. The man raised an eyebrow. "It's Russian for-"

"Red." he finished, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.

"I'll get some food for you." Zlata said after a pause, yanking on her coat and disappearing out the door. When she returned, he was gone, but he left a void in the shed larger than a man like him would have left. She left the food on the workbench and left, making sure to lock the doors of her house. In the morning, the food was gone.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

By the time the sun set early in the day, as it was wont to do during northern winter months, the blizzard had died down considerably. Only a light wind caused occasional flurries of powdery snow to dance across the pearly white landscape. The moon glared on the snow, lighting up the whole night and giving it a ghostly sheen. Zlata hovered over her small stove, warming her hands by the light of several coals. With the strange man on the loose, she didn't want to sleep as early as she usually did.

The second time that night, Zlata stretched and peered out her window like a crabby old lady spying on her neighbors. Her breath frosted the glass, but she saw nothing amiss. Grumbling to herself about the paranoid fool that she was, Zlata settled back down near the fire, wrapping the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

A slight noise caused her to flinch. Bolting upright, Zlata scuttled to the window. The door to her workshop was ajar. Cursing her curiosity, she bundled up and trudged outside, the soft granular snow parting easily. She nudged her way into her shop, immediately noticing the candle again, and the man sitting almost exactly as he had the night before, except his arm was held at an odd angle.

"Hey Krasnyy." she said cautiously. The man stirred at the sound of the name Zlata attributed him. "Is it your arm again?" she asked, walking forward hesitantly. He inclined his head silently. She nodded and grabbed her tool belt, crouching to take a look.

The metal was so cold that it seeped through her warm gloves. His coat, never in good shape, was crusted with frost and stiff like rawhide. His metal arm was coated in a thin layer of ice, and chunks of damp snow tangled in his hair. His baseball cap had an icicle dangling from the brim. He had obviously been wading through cold water.

"You shouldn't go in water anymore Krasnyy, that dent in your arm lets water in." the man frowned slightly and lowered his head to look. Zlata dug around in her tool belt and produced a hand warmer, which she crushed so it immediately warmed her hand. She then tilted the appendage so any water would flow out of the chink in his arm and not simply pool there. She thawed the shoulder first, and with a blunt chisel she scraped off the ice that was slowly cracking like paint.

Zlata slowly worked her way down the length of his arm, privately admiring the far-advanced technology that mimicked human muscles, which knotted and coiled as she melted the crust of ice off.

"What were you doing in the water in the first place?" she asked curiously, as gently as she could.

Krasnyy took a long time to answer, and when he did, his voice was quiet and hoarse. "I was looking."

"Looking for what?" Zlata paused in the chipping when she felt the arm's fingers contract.

"Me."

Zlata again left food out for him, and in the morning that, too, was gone. She also laid out some of her grandfather's old clothing. It was probably too large for him, but she figured it was better than a dirty trench coat and the ripped black t-shirt he was wearing. She laughed at the thought of what her grandfather would say when he found out she was feeding and fixing a stranger with a metal arm. In the morning that, too, was gone.

**Thanks for reading, please follow/favorite and leave a review! **


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The storm had blown itself out that night, but it was no less cold. Zlata huddled beside the fire, rubbing her hands together and hoping that Krasnyy hadn't accidentally killed himself. It was late at night, when the fire had burned to low embers, that there was a commotion by the tool shed. Grabbing her coat, hat, and mittens, she exited through the back door and trudged to the shed. She paused, her hand on the door handle, took a deep breath, and walked in.

Huddled in the darkest part of her shed was кра́сный, his heavy breath steaming in the still shed, illuminated like a ghost from the pale moonlight that shone through the grimy windowpane. It glinted off his exposed metal arm, but Zlata saw nothing amiss, apart from the seemingly permanent plates that refused to flatten despite her best attempts.

"What's wrong this time, Krasnyy?" she asked hesitantly, lowering herself onto a stool by the counter. Shrugging his coat off, the man pointed to a gash on his upper bicep. It was neither deep nor wide, but crusted with dried blood, clotted with dirt and pus, and tangled with loose fibers from his long-sleeved shirt. Zlata bit her lip, unsure of her ability to fix a person. She motioned for him to follow her, and after a moment's hesitation, he complied.

The house was a welcome relief from the cold, and Zlata hung her coat, mittens, and hat on a peg by the back door. She toed off her boots, curling her toes to circulate the blood. Krasnyy did the same, but all with his left arm; the metal arm. He winced as it brushed past the ragged wound.

"Alright, let's see what we have here." Zlata grabbed her first aid kit from the cabinet in the kitchen, as well as two stools. She gave one to Krasnyy and one to herself. "May I remove your shirt?" she asked. He promptly grabbed the hem of his shirt and dragged it over his head, but the sleeve snagged on a loose plate. Krasnyy snorted and Zlata giggled, gently prying the fibers off and working the sleeve off. Slowly, she rolled the other sleeve down his injured arm, pausing just before the wound. "I'll do this really quickly." she promised and before he could even nod, she yanked downwards. Several of the threads which had melded with the dried pus and blood tore at scabs and new blood welled to the surface. The man sucked in his breath, tensing his abdominals, but the worst was yet to come.

Zlata whistled. "Bozhe moy." Bozhe moy. She beheld the wound in all its glory, wiping the excess blood off with a clean cloth.

"Bozhe moy." Krasnyy agreed meekly. After several seconds of scrutiny, Zlata ran the cloth under damp water and hovered it hesitantly over the torn flesh.

"This will probably hurt like a motherfucker." she advised him before, gently as she could, washing away the clotted dirt and debris. Krasnyy displayed no outward emotion, but his jaw tightened and the tendons in his hand wriggled, though the hand itself was slack.

When she finished cleaning the wound, it was clear it wasn't as serious as Zlata thought it was. No muscle or fat showed, and it probably wouldn't require stitches, but she put some ointment and gauze, then wrapped it in medical tape.

"Here, I'll wash your shirt." she said, scooping up the dark pile of fabric at her feet which smelled like sweat and blood. "And your coat too." she wrinkled her nose at the stench. She dumped the contents in her washer, along with the rest of her load, and turned it on. It rumbled in the background like a benevolent beast as she went back to her living room, where Krasnyy sat, still as a well-sculpted statue. Zlata went over to the fireplace and piled more wood on the dying coals, sitting back on her heels as she watched the flames writhe and dance.

"Thank you." Krasnyy said quietly.

She turned so she looked into his conflicted face, swirling with unnamable emotions. But earnesty shone out among them all. She nodded slowly. "You're welcome." she stood somewhat stiffly and sat beside him. His lank hair fell in front of his face, despite the baseball cap that was supposed to have kept it out. She lightly bumped his shoulder with her own; a friendly gesture between comrades. She could have sworn he smiled.

"You know… You're welcome to spend the night, if you want." Zlata said, gesturing to the couch. "It's not that comfortable, but it's got to be better than a rock." she joked. Krasnyy stayed silent for a long time. Zlata stood to walk down the hallway to her bedroom when he cleared his throat awkwardly.

"... spasibo." _Thank you_.

"dobro pozhalovat." _You're welcome_. Zlata returned with a small smile. "I'll get you some blankets."

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